Despite having an all-star cast, Con Air isn’t action-y enough to be an action movie, nor prison-y enough to be a prison movie; resulting in a film that has no fuckin’ clue what it wants to do with itself.

In falling flat on it’s face trying to embody the genres listed above, Con Air falls back on what many Jerry Bruckheimer financed blockbusters attempt to do, namely be “funny.”

Normally this would be acceptable, (and if Michael Bay’s in charge, very likely racist) however in this case most of the funny lines are delivered by DEATH ROW INMATES, making the humor just a little bit morally questionable.

Haha! Serial killers are HILARIOUS!

Despite all of Con Air’s failings, to it’s credit; it remains a very watchable piece of mid-90’s garbage.

One thing the movie did doright though, was give us the awesomeness that is Nic Cage’s Cameron Poe.

Cameron Poe, feeeeeeeels so good....

A quiet Southern gentleman who just happens to be an Army Ranger, Cameron Poe also happens to be mullet-ed and blue jean-ed DEATH on 2 legs.

Case in point, Poe is known to be SO FUCKING SAVAGE that in defending his PREGNANT WIFE against 3 drunken yahoos, 1 of whom is armed with a knife; Poe ends up getting sent to prison for manslaughter.

Seriously man, the guy is SO FUCKING SAVAGE that in killing an armed man in self-defense, he gets sent to prison for 8 years on the grounds that he “should’ve known better,” being as he’s a FUCKING KILLING MACHINE.

Anyway, despite Poe’s infinite awesomeness, Con Air as a movie doesn’t exactly afford him all that many opportunities to be badass.

There’s that one time he rescues a stuffed bunny through “presenting rearward” to a more than a little surprised Nick Chinlund while over-the-top rock music blared in the background:

Somebody just lost their cherry. Not sure who...

Then there was that one time he Chuck Norris-ed the shit out of some Mexicans to the sounds of over-the-top rock music:

The MANLIEST of MANLY maneuvers: The Roundhouse Kick!

And I guess there was that one time he prevented the rape of that one lady from Total Recall by beating the shit out of “The Man Who Always Dies In Movies,”Danny Trejo; also set to over-the-top rock music:

In other words, Cameron Poe; as awesome as he is, seems dependent on the presence of over-the-top stylings of Trevor Rabin’s orchestral synth-rock music in order to get his swagger on and kill the fuck out of, well; apparently mostly just Mexicans.

Cameron Poe’s not racist, there just happen to be a lot of Hispanic bad guys that wander into his path in Con Air.

At least I hope that’s the case…

Thankfully, Cameron Poe’s MANLIEST of MAN moments, and our 7th MANLIEST MAN moment in all of movies; involves no violence directed at Hispanics, but rather plain ‘ole white guys, which of course makes it all the more PC!:

Chasing after the plane in pair of attack helicopters, the Irish guy orders his pilot to shoot it down; while John Cusack’s Vince Larkin does what he can to protect the government’s property I.E. both the plane and CAMERON FUCKING POE by screaming “CEASE FIRE!” into the ear of the pilot in the front seat.

Dial it down Cusack! The check cleared...

Long story short, some shots are fired, but not enough to knock the plane out of the sky.

During all of this however, Nic Cage’s Cameron Poe is in the process of HULKING OUT over his diabetic friend Baby-O, played by Bubba from Forrest Gump; having just been shot in the gut by John Malkovich’s unitentionally hilarious Cyrus the Virus.

Nearly brought to MANLY tears at the sight of his friends lying on the ground dieing and rapidly losing his faith, Poe does what any self-respecting MAN would do and casually DECLARES HIMSELFGOD and sets out on his way to kill a bunch of people:

Thus begins the awesomeness of MANLY moment #7.

Standing up from tending to his fallen friend, The Poe’s trademark over-the-top rock music starts blaring, and shit gets real, really fuckin’ fast!

Stomping down the aisle of the Jail Bird on a bee line for the cockpit, Poe throws on his MANLIEST of MAN-FACES and ascends to his ULTIMATE level of MAN-SAVAGERY:

Despite the massive aura of MANLINESS radiating from him during all of this, a couple of the bad guys foolishly step up to challenge The Poe-Dozer.

First up is a big-ass blonde, shirtless douchbag with a broken bottle that uses what little time he has left on this Earth to shout a retarded and borderline incoherent threat at The Poe-Dozer:

Just 'cause you've only got a tenth second to issue a threat, doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

As one might expect, size advantage or not; going toe-to-toe with The Poe when he’s in full-on Poe-Dozer Mode get’s this poor shmuck beat to shit something fierce.

Quick as you can say “1, 2, 3” The Poe-Dozer brings it’s blade to bear and claims it’s first victim:

Wham, bam, thank you ma'am...

Not skipping a beat, The Poe-Dozer continues his march of MANLINESS, letting out an obscenely MANLY “HUUOOOAAAH!!!!!” as he steps over the fallen blonde douchebag.

Unfortunately, another bad guy pops up in The Poe’s way; this time armed with a handgun.

Having seen his partner utterly steamrolled by the fury of The Poe-Dozer, the baddie wastes no time lifting his pistol and opening fire.

Bad Guy used Bullet Seed! It's not very effective...

Unbeknownst to this particular bad guy though, The Poe-Dozer is immune to gunfire, thusly causing the otherwise debilitating injury of a bullet to the bicep to seem like little more than a minor annoyance.

… A minor annoyance that serves to ANGER the already POSITIVELYFUMING Poe-Dozer.

That being said, it should come as no surprise, least of all to the bad guy standing before him; that The Poe-Dozer goes to town on this sad sack of fuck with a motherfuckin’ vengeance.

… But not before we cut to a shot of the guy having a moment as he reflects on the error of his ways:

Utterly frozen in disbelief at the sight of The Poe-Dozer’sunflinching reaction to the gunshot wound, the convict finds himself unable to pull the trigger a second time.

His fate sealed, the bad guy quickly succumbs to the unrelenting fury of The Poe-Dozer; falling by the wayside after 3 consecutive straight right hands to the jaw.

... And here comes #3.

At this point the music has already begun to calm down, thereby stripping The Poe-Dozer of his inhuman strength and vengeance fueled MAN-RAGE.

Fortunately, the previous 2 bad guys made up the bulk of The Poe’s resistance in reaching the cockpit, with the last obstacle remaining in his way (besides the fucking door) being the effeminate cross-dressing convict, “Sally Can’t Dance.”

Behold, the dreaded final boss of the "March to the Cockpit" stage in Con Air: The Videogame!

Reverting from his uber-violent Poe-Dozer Mode to the more socially acceptable Southern Gentleman Mode, The Poe sees fit to dispatch “Sally Can’t Dance” in a manner that is fitting, namely that of laying the smack down with an open palm:

Huh, ‘guess I lied about the “no violence towards Hispanics” in this scene.

Oh well.

Technically there’s more to it, but in my eyes this moment marks the conclusion of the 7th MANLIEST MAN moment in movies.

Check back tomorrow for MANLY moment #6 on our list of the Top 10 Manliest Man Moments!